500 People Mourn and Pay Final Respect to 6 Bomba Divers Drowned in Puchong Rescue Mission

The morning sky today may be clear but our hearts are gloomy as our thoughts are still with the six firemen who lost their lives last night (Oct 4) when they were trying to search for a 17-year-old boy that fell into a mining pond in Puchong.

Social media posts that had footage and pictures of the incident racked tens of thousands of shares. In the videos, we could see the heroes struggled to stay afloat after approaching a water falling area. The 5-minute video was censored by Facebook, it’s only accessible after giving viewing consent. All netizens could make out from the video is that the stream was strong and directive screams were given to the divers but none of them could escape the plight.

NST reported that the firemen were in the mining pond in Taman Putra Perdana at 9.15pm after they received reports that a 17-year-old male victim had fallen into the pool about 5pm. The boy, Mohd Ilham Fahmy, was accompanied by two friends before the fall and they were about to start their fishing activities. Frantically, the two friends sought help from residents.

Father of the boy, Mohd Azzam Naim, 46, was devastated upon learning that the search and rescue mission had cost six lives from the Fire and Rescue Department (JPBM) Water Rescue Unit. He was met by reporters at the scene and pictures showed that he was holding his tears in. He told his boy to stop fishing in the area before as there were two men reportedly drowned there two months ago, Harian Metro reported.

Sepang district police chief Assistant Commissioner Abdul Aziz Ali said a few firemen were on standby during the incident and tried to pull the divers out when the water level suddenly surged.

“When they were brought out (of the water), all six of them were unconscious. The paramedics at the scene performed CPR for 30 minutes but none of the victims gave any response and they were pronounced dead later,” Abdul Aziz said. The first diver was only pulled out after 30 minutes into the turmoil.

After undergoing post-mortem in Serdang Hospital, the bodies of the six victims were sent to Seksyen 15 fire station this morning for a simple and final tribute ceremony for the men. 500 family members of the victim and personnel attended the ceremony. The caskets were draped with the national flag and were held up by their colleagues before putting into vans for burial arrangement in their respective hometown.

It’s the first time in JPBM water rescue history that they received so many deaths in the department over one mission. The previous incident took away two lives.